I have not tried any blueberries from my North varieties yet, Spartan and Northland are the two Northerns that I have that grow best in poor soil and in less sunlight hours than they’d prefer.
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Jersey and Olympia were the most flavorful here in my PNW climate. Jersey is vigorous and particularly richly flavored. Olympia is also very uniquely tasty and very ornamental with red stems. I grow 12 different varieties and these tasted the best to me.
This year I added Hardiblue. We’ll see how it does.
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I live in deer country, and have to protect my fruit trees and strawberries, but have not had a problem with blueberries getting munched by deer. I would recommend to not wrap blueberry bushes in bird netting, as the shrubs’ “twigginess” will get severely caught and tangled in it. Build a PVC cage and drape the bird netting over the make shift structure. Keeps birds out and doesn’t snag the blueberry plants. My favorite varieties are Spartan, Chandler, Blue Ray and Nelson.
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I’m not northern, but I also grow Chandler. It’s a winner! I’d like them to be a bit firmer just because I like really firm blueberries, but that’s my only complaint.
My favorite for taste is actually Sunshine Blue, but it blooms so early after any warm spells! It may be less hardy as well (not a problem here); I get confused on the genetics for the non-rabbiteye types. But if that one is hardy and will stay dormant in a colder climate, I really recommend it. It takes a good deal of shade and isn’t very finicky about pH like most blueberries.
I have had deer munch my Chandler back a whole year. My deer do hate that bird netting, so I use wooden poles stuck in-ground to hold the netting over the bush. I’m a little afraid it may have been a rabbit that got mine, but rabbits don’t usually eat the entire branches they cut off in my yard. I only protected for deer this past year and it worked.
I second the Legacy. LOTS of good berries on an “evergreen” bush.
Nothing better than your own bloobs!
We have a six foot fence surrounding our raised bloob bed with bird netting on top. We have gangs of deer and so many berry theivn’ robins, well we can’t eat all the robin stew we could make! Its a joke!
The biggest problem we face is keeping the soil acid. In a 8 plant bed we tilled in 4 bales of peat and 25# of elemental sulfur and cover it with 8-12 inches of hardwood mulch every year. It has yaken awhile but the pH is in the 5-5.8 range every year. BB’s are shallow rooted so make sure you can put 1’5-2" water every week.
I can’t remember what we planted but they were from Lowes and we are getting a lot of berries now!
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We planted Nelson, Patriot, Bluecrop and Blueray last year. So no fruit yet. The plants don’t look so great now, but they may still be dormant.
Wow, lots of great suggestions. This will be fun! What really got me started was my 16 month old’s insatiable appetite for blueberries…I may need to take out a second mortgage to keep her fed and happy.
It sound like some of the favorites are Spartin, Liberty, Parriot, Chandler and then maybe Jersey, Legacy, Nelson, Darrow. I’d guess the quality of the berries also depends on growing conditions.
Thinking things through, I may end up buying three bushes instead of two…I have the room for it. Ideally I would want to buy blueberries from the local nursery here, but they didn’t know which varieties they would have in stock until April. So, I may have to go the mail order route instead just to be sure I’m able to plant some of the varieties that were recommended. Shopping around, it also looks like a lot of mail order are limited on varieties…One Green World looks to have quite a few though.
Here in Colorado, the suggested way of growing blueberies from our local ag extension is to actually bury an entire bale of peat moss, plastic and all. Poke a few holes in the bottom of the bale for drainage, and then cut a hole at the top for the bush to be planted in. Mulch around the top to keep water in and heat buildup down from the bale.
Sometimes I wonder how many blueberry plants are missmarked. I have a Jersey that is mediocre with small berries as @jxz7245 has said. I keep it only so my Blue Crop gets some cross pollination. Blue Crop has a strong blueberry taste. Darrow is ok and has its own unique taste rather than a standard blueberry taste.
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Nourse Farms out of Mass has nice stuff and good descriptions, a lot of cold hardy stock. You’ll find them with a google search. I can’t say I think your local extension office is providing good advice.
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I’m interesting to hear about Darrow - I planted two as a companion to Chandler due to reading they were a large berry, but if they aren’t amazing I would be interested to hear more and consider removing them. I want to make room to try the new Titan and Krewer varieties.
I also would like to hear if anyone has compared Elliott and Aurora, as I currently have two of each but neither has fruited, and I think I only want to keep one of the two varieties as a late blueberry (again to make room for Titan and Krewer!) any comparison feedback would be appreciated!!
I’d probably not call Darrow amazing,but is good and does have a unique flavor,like danzeb mentioned.Brady
Elliott seems to get good reviews on here as the standard of late season bloobs.
There are lots of other blueberry threads on this forum.
Colo gets cold. I wonder if the Minnesota bred would be good for you. I have Northsky and Northcountry. The former is really small. The latter has sized up nice. They are ultra cold hardy. In zone 7, I can leave them in frozen pots outside all winter.
I am thinking about getting Superior…
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Sunshine Blue
is rated Zone 5 - 9, about as cold hardy as Spartan. It’s like one notch less cold hardy vs the most cold hardy ones.
I am not sure about where you live yet Lowes Home Improvident here has a great selection of blueberry plants. I have seen at least Jersey and Parriot at our local one, it’s hard to remember for sure exactly what I have seen there.
I’ve grown blueberries for 7 years here in Maine. My 5 varieties in order of ripening…Northland, Patriot, Bluecrop, Jersey, Elliott. All have been very productive. The only one that I do not care for taste wise is Jersey. It is also the softest berry. Each one is very distinct in growth habit, ripening period and taste. My favorites taste wise are Northland, Bluecrop & Elliott. Patriot has a very strong blueberry taste but can vary depending on conditions.
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Don’t just buy whatever you can find locally, there are massive differences between bushes! In my Zone 7 yard I started many years ago with Early Premier, Climax, Blueray, and O’Neal. The Blueray and O’Neal remain- the other two grew and produced well but lacked flavor and size. Early Premier was not very good at all. The O’Neals are incredible. They have ruined store-bought blueberries for my kids and I. Everyone who tries them raves about the flavor.
I added Southern Sweetcrisp based on recommendations in this forum. They have only produced a handful of berries so far but what they did produce has me very excited about this summer!
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Andy, there is good reason not to plant blueberries in the soil here. Our soil is on the alkaline side and highly buffered due to the lime concentration. Here’s a good article for growing blueberies in the west: Front Range Food Gardener: Blueberry growing intense in Colorado
So here, we need to grow in containers or burried containers (bale of spaghnum) to control the medium. Apparently this method has had success.
My problem with the bale, as in time it will decay completely. Some real soil is needed. Raised beds can do that and it’s easier to control the pH with sulfur. I use 1 foot boards and fill the first 6 inches with a garden soil. I then add sulfur on top of it. The rest of the soil is my blueberry mix mounded in the middle as high as I can get. I have plants 6 years old in this method they are huge. It works well! I check pH at the start of each season to see if I need to make adjustments. usually not.
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